Letters to the Editor in the Providence Journal are tacking Right March 26, 2008

I always read the Letters to the Editor because sometimes you find a real gem in there that demonstrates the rightward bias of the editorial staff at the Belo owned Providence Journal. I do know that Belo is shopping the Providence Journal around so maybe they’re leaning right to appear attractive to another newspaper group. I don’t know what the motivation is but I can guarantee two things that comes out of the letters I’m posting here.

That they’re written by social conservatives is one thing, the other thing I suspect is that the people writing them are older folks who have been hornswoggled by the news media.

My comments will follow each letter so lets begin:

Joan E. Frattarelli: Broken families end up stocking prisons

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 26, 2008

“More than 1 in 100 adults are in jail.” That should be a wake up call to our government officials and the voters who put them in office. The only explanation I have heard so far for this travesty is that jail sentences are longer. That may be a small contributing factor but is far from the core of the problem, which is the break-down of the family unit.

More and more children are being brought up in dysfunctional families; the parents (or in most cases, parent) are so drunk or high on drugs that the children are left to fend for themselves at a very young age; there is no guidance. They get indoctrinated by witnessing their parents’ destructive behavior on a daily basis. As a result, they become a product of their environment. Since these mothers generally have multiple children, the social problems will increase with every generation.

The government’s programs created to reform and rehabilitate such behaviors are not working. We taxpayers are spending an enormous amount of money on these failed programs. For example, we have a drug court that requires addicts to sign a contract with the court that lasts for two years. During those two years they have counselors and social workers making decisions for them. They have to abide by the conditions of the court that monitors them closely, and they are rewarded as they proceed through the program.

Once they fulfill the terms and conditions of their contract they are on their own, which means they have to start making their own decisions. In most cases they revert back to their old habits, since it is so difficult to change once you reach adulthood. Most are not capable of making good decisions, and their children are again faced with the same dangerous and destructive environment as before.

Too much emphasis is being placed on keeping children with their parents. It is my belief that, for the sake of these children, this mentality must change. The children should be removed from their destructive environment. These children would be better off in a state home, where they can receive the guidance, structure and lessons in respect and responsibility that they need to become productive adults.

Cut off the welfare checks for the adults who have perpetually abused our welfare system, who spend our tax dollars on cigarette, drugs and alcohol. Our money would be better spent on programs and facilities for their poor children.

JOAN E. FRATTARELLI

North Scituate

Ms. Frattarelli is guitly of believing the FUD spread by the media. First she states that broken homes are responsible for the drug epidemic. No Ms. Fratarelli, a sense of futileness and hopelessness lead to drug use. In some case drug use is purely recreational.

Her attack on welfare is disgraceful. There was nothing wrong with the old system, all they needed to do was add better investigative services and perhaps do child cutoffs. I did see one example of abuse one time but that was just a woman working the system and being a baby machine.

But the best part is where she advocates stripping kids from parents who ‘drink or do drugs’. Oh those wacky swamp yankee conservatives make me laugh. Frattarelli would fit in well with the Calvinisits, or dare I say it the Scientologists.

Here’s the next letter this one is a Bush policy supporter and parrots the line that if we hadn’t brought the fight to Iraq the ‘terrorists’ would have brought the fight here. Someone needs to get out more.

Andrew Lyon: What if in Iraq

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Bob Kerr’s column of March 19, titled “What if,” shows why a liberal point of view is always dangerous to our freedom and what the Founding Fathers wanted America to become.

I would like to pose some “what if” questions to Mr. Kerr. What if we did not have a strong leader like George W. Bush? If we did not take the fight to the enemy, they would have become more emboldened. This is what happened during the long eight years of Bill Clinton, where extreme Islamic fundamentalism flourished and a weak leader did nothing. What if America took marching orders from the United Nations — or worse, Mr. Kerr?

The answer is simple: We would be fighting on our soil. Rest assured that this war on terrorism was going to happen even if we just sat there waiting for America to be attacked again. The liberal view (that of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) is that we should wait for them to attack us and then try to understand. I say let’s protect America first and understand later.

I have an idea for Mr. Kerr: It’s the citizens’ money, not the government’s. Mr. Kerr and liberals would just spend it on more liberal programs. I would rather spend it on keeping us alive! Mr. Bush has protected our country since 9/11. It is the president’s primary responsibility. He gets an A-plus in that department.

Ask Mr. Kerr to look what liberalism has brought to Rhode Island. I will be more than happy to answer: the fourth-highest-taxed state; the 50th friendliest state for business; one of the top welfare states; political corruption on a revolving-door basis; and a failing school system.

Mr. Kerr also took a pot shot at Mr. Bush’s intelligence. Let’s see: Yale graduate, Harvard Business School MBA. Where did you go to school, Mr. Kerr?

What makes America the greatest country is that we always try to do what is right and we have brave men and women who defend us from the evil that exists in the world.

ANDREW LYON

Cumberland

What? What? A liberal point of view is dangerous to democracy? What the hell has Asshat Lyon been doing, even watching Faux he would make the cognitive jump that our civil rights are being trampled on a regular basis in the name of safety. I’m reminded of this quote from Benjamin Franklin, remember him?

There it is Mr. Lyon, you deserve neither. Your outright attack shows that you took the neo-con agenda hook, line and sinker.

And when Lyon says “Let’s protect America first and understand later” I cannot fathom the ignorance of this statement. It’s akin to “Shoot first and ask questions later.” which is NOT a good policy principle. It’s the kind of policy principle that gets you into quagmires which is precisely what Iraq has become.

What Lyon doesn’t’ realize is that some point in the very near future we’ll need to pull our troops out of Iraq. But he doesn’t get the fact that there were no terrorists there before we invaded. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator but he managed to put a Sunni minority in control of a Shia majority. That was quite the balancing act. We broke it.

My guess is if we stay or go, we’re going to see more terrorism on U.S. soil. Put it this way, the U.S. backed creation of citizen groups to stamp out the insurgency and had agreed to pay the groups to do so. But then the U.S. reneged on our promise. So now we have an armed group of 80,000 men in Iraq who’ve now told the U.S. to go pound sand. Lovely policy blunder there. BTW, Real News is an awesome source. Here’s the video:

I think what bothers me more about Lyon’s letter is his charge that Clinton did nothing to stop terrorism while he was in office. Oh peaches, he did more than Bush has done. You do remember the 1991-1992 invasion right? How about the no fly zone? Or a diplomatic core that wasn’t gutted to the core and the laughingstock of the western world. How about defining torture as legally acceptable. Or suspension of Habeas Corpus for those deemed ‘enemy combatants’.

And as far as the echoing of Bush’s Yale and Harvard days, how about we look at the solid C student, or the guy who got a choice spot on the Texas Air National Guard which meant he’d shirk any time in Vietnam. Lyon has yet to realize that power and privilege do nothing for the little guy and everything for those who wield said power and privilege.

Actually instead of impeachment I’d like to see Bush, Cheney, Gates, Gonzalez, Alito, et al dragged from their offices, given standard combat uniforms and then whisk them off to Iraq without USSS protection or even U.S. Army protection. Then let them tell us how well things are going over there.

I wonder if he thinks he’s better off now than he was seven years ago. I can answer that question easily, no we’re not. We’re worse off with runaway inflation, eroding civil rights, and an administration led by a man who once said and I’ll paraphrase here “The Constitution is just a God Damned piece of paper.” Yeah, I feel all safe and comfy.